


Stay Stay Stay

by AnnieSoFar



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Arguing, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 06:04:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6942763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnieSoFar/pseuds/AnnieSoFar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Stacie turns up late for the fourth night in a row and Aubrey is finally sick of it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay Stay Stay

It was a known fact that Aubrey Posen was a worrier. She worried about massive things like world hunger and terrorism and, the fact her best friend had moved the entire way across the country and she didn’t know when she would see Chloe again. She worried about the smallest of things, like whether her shoes matched her dress or whether she had a hair out of place when she was at work, which in itself was ridiculous because she ran a goddamn nature retreat and  _ nobody  _ cared about her hair. She worried easily, about practically anything and everything, so when Stacie  _ still  _ wasn’t home at twenty three minutes past two in the morning, for the fourth night in as many days, Aubrey had moved right past worry. She was absolutely fucking furious.

The rattle of Stacie’s key in the lock pulled Aubrey from her thoughts and her entire body tensed as she waited for Stacie to round the corner into the sitting room, where Aubrey sat on the couch, staring blankly at the wall. She listened intently as she heard Stacie close the front as quietly as possible, and if she wasn’t so angry, she might have smiled at the fact that Stacie was being quiet to avoid disturbing her. She heard the soft clatter of Stacie’s shoes on the laminate floor and then the sound of socked feet sliding gracefully across the floor, before they came to a halt at the doorway to the living room.

“Bree? I thought you would be asleep.” Stacie’s words were sheepish and full of apprehension, and she hesitated in the doorway, as if she was able to feel the anger radiating from the blonde, and the fact that Stacie didn’t even have the courage to face her only fueled Aubrey’s temper, as she stood abruptly and crossed the room towards Stacie in three quick strides.

“And I thought you would be home  _ eight hours  _ ago. I guess we were both wrong. Do you even know what time it is?” Aubrey asked in low voice that was laced with venom, and she saw the taller woman flinch at her words.

Stacie reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out her phone, and Aubrey had to bite back an incredulous laugh as the darker haired woman replied. “It’s late,” she uttered in a quiet voice as shifted her weight from foot to foot uncomfortably.

“So you have your phone then?” Aubrey was too furious to even acknowledge Stacie’s reply before she moved onto her agenda, her words flying violently at the other woman like bullets.

“Yes, I have my phone, but I-”

“And do you know what this is?” Aubrey swiftly cut Stacie off as she pulled her own phone from her jeans pocket and held it up for Stacie to see.

Confusion washed over Stacie’s face for a moment as she replied dubiously, her voice filled with uncertainty. “It’s your phone.”  

Aubrey hummed curtly, letting Stacie know she was right, as she tapped a little too harshly against her screen, tapping her foot against the carpet until a loud ringing echoed through the hallway. “So it works then, your phone.”

“Yes-”

“So you would've heard the  _ seventeen  _ times I tried to call you, to see where you were, to see if you were okay because I was fucking worried sick about you.” Aubrey steamrolled over Stacie’s last reply and the other woman winced at the harshness of the words. Aubrey didn’t swear.

“I’m sorry- My phone was off- I was busy-” Stacie stammered out, her hands gesturing aimlessly because she knew her excuses fell on deaf ears.

“You were busy?” Aubrey laughed incredulously as she advanced towards Stacie, who was hastily backing her way into the hallway by the front door. “What were you  _ so  _ busy with that you couldn’t answer your phone? That makes you  _ eight hours  _ later?”

Stacie could barely even open her mouth to defend herself before Aubrey’s reply, along with something that  _ definitely  _ would break her iPhone’s warranty, and possibly its screen, came. “Seventeen  _ fucking  _ times Stacie!” Aubrey practically screamed before she flung her phone at the girl in question. Hard. Several years running a retreat where one of the main activities was archery left Aubrey with a strong aim, and the phone would have hit Stacie right between the eyes, except living on said retreat with Aubrey for the past year had left her with extremely good reflexes, and she jerked away at the last second, staring at Aubrey with wide eyes; because although she portrayed the authoritarian role in her work, Aubrey was  _ never  _ violent. The very prominent dent in the dry wall however, begged to differ.

“The traffic from the city was awful Bree I-”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, the traffic?! Traffic might make you an hour later, maybe two. Not  _ eight.”  _ Stacie froze at the words, because no matter what way you looked at it, Aubrey was right, and they both knew it. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Nowhere!” Stacie insisted and the lie was so painfully obvious, it might as well have been written on her forehead.

Aubrey laughed as her jaw fell open, the sound ringing through the hallway; loud and humourless. “Well, ‘ _ nowhere’  _ is  _ obviously  _ more important to you than me, so you might as well just go.”

The words hung heavy in the dead air between them, both of them feeling the chill that settled over the room, and Aubrey had to resist the urge to take her words back, because the look on Stacie face as she stood, her feet frozen to the ground, broke her heart. “You’ve been late home  _ every night  _ this week and the one time I ask for a fucking explanation, you lie to my face.”

This was Stacie’s chance to try and redeem herself, to offer  _ any  _ sort of explanation for her whereabouts over the past few nights, but she offered none, remaining silent as her gaze dropped to the floor.

“Get out.” There was no coming back from that, and the words burned Aubrey’s throat as she hurled them as Stacie, her stomach dropping as the other woman finally met her gaze, her eyes wide with shock and filled with hurt as she realised the blonde was being deadly serious.

Aubrey recalled a time when her words would’ve sent Stacie running for the hills, had her drive away in her car and never look back and it actually said a lot about just how far their relationship had evolved and developed that Stacie wasn’t half way out of the door. That she was still stood there, feet planted firmly on the laminate as she stared at Aubrey like she’d forgotten how to breathe. That she wasn’t yelling back. That she’d stayed.

And somewhere inside, Aubrey knew she was being irrational, and trying to kick Stacie out of  _ their  _ house was definitely not going to solve the problem. She knew she shouldn’t have said what she did about not being important, because she  _ knew  _ how important she was to Stacie, and if the feeling wasn’t so mutual, they wouldn’t be having this fight in the first place. But she didn’t take her words back, instead, opting to let them sink beneath the other woman’s skin because she had spent the last eight hours worrying about her and she needed Stacie to know that.

There’s the obvious undertone to the words, and whilst neither of them openly acknowledged it; Aubrey didn’t accuse, and Stacie didn’t rebuke; it’s there. Because Aubrey was tired and angry and Stacie obviously hadn’t been in some awful car wreck, therefore the idea she was with  _ someone  _ else sat in her mind, buzzing incessantly like an insect, growing louder and louder with each passing second of their silence.

It was Stacie that moved first, towards Aubrey in a way that made the blonde think she was either about to be embraced or slapped, (and there were parts of her brain that thought she deserved both) but neither come. With a slight shake of her head, Stacie walked right past Aubrey and straight up the stairs, and Aubrey didn't bother to turn around to see where she went next. She waited  a moment, wanting to be doubly sure that she wouldn’t see Stacie’s face when she turned around, but the soft shutting of a door upstairs indicates that she wouldn’t, and when Aubrey finally turned around, she didn’t.

She made her own way up the stairs, her footsteps laced with more frustration than the other woman’s, and hesitated as she reached the only closed door on the corridor.  _ Of course  _ Stacie would choose to spend the night on the couch in Aubrey’s office. The blonde didn’t know whether that fact made her more angry or sad, didn’t know whether she wanted to continue their argument because Stacie  _ still  _ hadn’t answered her question; or whether she wanted to rip open the door and bundle her girlfriend into the tightest hug she could muster. Eventually, she opted for continuing past the door, to their bedroom, slamming the door audibly behind her.

Aubrey hated going to bed angry. Or upset. Or without Stacie, for that matter. It had become routine, even when Stacie was simply her roommate, because  _ college halls are expensive Stace, you can just move in here, it's only a few miles away,  _ for her to end up in Aubrey’s bed night, because  _ platonic cuddling is totally a thing Bree,  _ and now, two years into med school for Stacie, two more years running the retreat for her, and a year into their relationship, Aubrey found it extremely difficult to fall asleep without Stacie by her side.

It pained her, but she knew there was no way she would be able to sleep without some essence of Stacie there, so grudgingly, after hours of tossing and turning aimlessly, Aubrey rolled out of bed and crossed the dimly lit room to their dresser, blindly rummaging amidst various items of makeup and face wash and all of Stacie’s crap until she found what she was looking for; the small, glass bottle of Dior J’adore perfume that Stacie often spritzed herself with. She wandered back over to the bed, spraying her pillow with the perfume before climbing back in, sighing as she breathed in the scent that was distinctly more Stacie, before carelessly throwing the bottle back towards the dresser, feeling satisfied at the loud thud it made as it hit the floor, because she was still fucking angry, and was too tired to even think about it breaking, as the depths of sleep finally pulled her under.

* * *

 

When she woke up the next day, Aubrey was decidedly less furious and decidedly more heartbroken at the fact she and Stacie had argued. Well, that she had screamed at Stacie for half an hour then stormed off to bed, would be a more accurate description. With a groan, she pulled herself out of bed, running a hand through her tangled blonde hair, before padding across the carpet to the door, and then to the hallway.

The door to her office, the door that Stacie was almost certainly still behind, was still shut fast, and Aubrey felt her heart sink, regret and guilt pulsing through veins as she hesitated outside, wondering whether to knock and wait for Stacie to answer, whether Stacie  _ would  _ answer. After a moment, Aubrey sighed, and with a small shake of her head, continued down the hall to the stairs, making her way down, fulling intending to drink as much black coffee as it took to calm the nerves shaking inside of her, when she noticed a small stack of mail on the doormat. She lazily crossed the room, reaching down to grab the pile of letters, starting to flick through them as she wandered to the kitchen when she noticed an envelope she didn’t recognise. After she’d brewed herself an excessively strong cup of coffee, Aubrey sat down at the table, discarding all other mail in favour of the mystery letter.

Sliding the envelope open with the edge of her thumb, Aubrey pulled the paper from inside out with curious fingers, turning it over in her hands as she tried to figure out what on earth it was, until she read the words “Employee name: CONRAD, Stacie. Employee number: 8602409.” Aubrey frowned as the realisation she’d accidentally opened Stacie’s mail hit, only for it to be replaced with confusion immediately; Stacie didn’t  _ have  _ a job, she was still in school. Except here Aubrey was, holding in her hands what was now clearly the other girl’s paycheck, accounting for all the hours Stacie had been late home with no explanation.

Any trace of anger still left inside Aubrey dissipated as she stood up from the table, the rest of the mail left forgotten against the table top. Questions ran through her mind as she slowly made her way back upstairs; Why did Stacie have a job when she was already exhausting herself at medical school? Why didn’t Stacie tell her she had a job? If she needed money, did she really feel like she couldn’t just ask Aubrey for it?

She knocked softly on the office door as soon as she reached it and called out in the gentlest voice she could muster. “Stace? Can we talk?” An apology was there too, on the very tip of her tongue, but she waited, to see what Stacie’s explanation was, before she let it fall from her lips.

There was a moment of silence and Aubrey wondered whether the other woman was still sleeping until she heard her voice. “Just a second Bree,” Stacie called back, her words muffled by the door between them, the use of the nickname spreading hope and warmth through Aubrey’s body.

When the door eventually opened, Aubrey’s jaw dropped. Because stood in front of her, clad in a  _ goddamn  _ South Carolina Gamecocks helmet, was Stacie Conrad. At the obvious look of shock on Aubrey’s face, Stacie laughed melodically, the sound making the blonde’s heart squeeze because she  _ missed  _ Stacie so much, before she replied, “I’m not taking any chances Posen! Did your phone even survive that by the way? The wall didn’t.”

Despite Stacie’s teasing tone, Aubrey cringed, her face screwing up visibly because one; she knew she had completely over reacted and two; her over reaction had likely cost her a good $900 for a new phone, as well the cost of fixing the prominent dent in the drywall. “I haven’t dared look,” Aubrey said in a small voice, her tone laced with shame; a feeling that was mirrored in her features as well as her words. “Stace… This morning I accidentally opened your paycheck…” she started, wanting to see the other woman’s reaction before she continued.

“I guess now would be a good time to tell you I got a job?” Stacie offered with a small shrug and even beneath the helmet, Aubrey could see the awkward grimace on her face.

“You think?” Aubrey chuckled, and she could practically feel the tension between them melting away to nothing. “Why didn’t you just tell me Stace?” She continued in a saddened voice, her face falling into a frown because she genuinely believed that Stacie hadn’t trusted her, for whatever reason.

“This is going to sound really stupid now.” Stacie’s muffled voice came through the helmet with a hint of sheepishness that makes Aubrey’s heart sink because Stacie was the most intelligent woman she knew, and she believed wholeheartedly that nothing ‘stupid’ could ever leave her mouth. “I wanted to keep it a surprise.”

Aubrey’s small smile faltered for a second, confusion flashing across her features until she realised there was no possible way Stacie was talking  _ about  _ her job, before it morphed; from apologetic and sweet, to curious. “Keep what a surprise?”

“I’m gonna take the helmet off now, which by the way, why do you even have? You’re not gonna whip out another iPhone I don’t know about to throw at me, are you?” Stacie’s eyebrows were furrowed as she cautiously removed the helmet and her eyes were narrowed, but after years of friendship with Stacie, Aubrey had learned to tell when she was joking and when she wasn’t; this was the former. Once the helmet had been removed and set aside, Aubrey’s breath hitched in her throat as she came face to face with Stacie, without the separation of a football helmet, and like every time she looked at her, Aubrey was taken aback with how beautiful Stacie was. “Like I said, I wanted it to be a surprise, but-” Stacie paused dramatically and the blonde rolled her eyes, huffing out a chuckle at the other woman’s ridiculous notion that  _ everything  _ had to be a huge spectacle. “We’re going to visit Beca and Chloe in Los Angeles. You’ve done so much for me, supporting me through med school and all, and I wanted to do something nice for you and I know you miss the-”

The bone crushing hug that Aubrey barreled into Stacie with, knocked the air from her lungs and cut off the rest of her sentence, as the apologies that had been brimming inside Aubrey finally spilled out, “I’m sorry, I should’ve trusted you; I’m sorry that I yelled and didn’t let you explain; I’m sorry I threw my fucking phone at you, oh my god that was awful, Stace I-”

“Aubrey, shut the fuck up and kiss me already.” Stacie replied assertively, her hands already reaching and pulling at the blonde’s t shirt to reel her in for a kiss, a pleasant sigh escaping her lips as they connected with Aubrey’s. After a moment, the darker haired woman pulled back. “Why do you smell of  _ me?” _

“Perfume. Pillow. Talk less, kiss more.” Aubrey urged breathlessly as she pulled Stacie back in for another, hungry, needy kiss, tangling her hands in the other woman’s hair that was tied up in a messy bun; desperate for the feeling of Stacie’s lips on hers once more, having been without it for practically an entire day.

“That’s possibly the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard.” Stacie replied with a grin as she pulled away. “You missed me?” She teased.

Aubrey pouted. “Of course I did, Stace,” she replied softly, her voice laced with sadness and regret. “I really am sorry-”

“I know you are.” Stacie assured with an easy smile, her hand resting gently against the blonde’s hip rubbing small circles over the exposed skin with her thumb. “You know, you actually look pretty cute when you’re angry, your face gets all scrunched up an-”

“Oh my god, shut up!”  Aubrey cried out, covering her face, which was distinctly several shades darker, with her hands out of embarrassment. Peeking out from between her fingers, she met Stacie’s gaze with pleading eyes. “Please don’t ever leave me. No matter what I say when I’m angry.”

Stacie raised an eyebrow and laughed, the sound ringing through the otherwise empty house, before she pulled Aubrey into a comforting, reassuring embrace. With her lips pressed against the blonde’s ear, she replied. “I’m  _ never  _ leaving you.”


End file.
